A THOUGHT for HAYING TIME.

Poverty Bay Standard, Volume II, Issue 205, 16 September 1874, Page 2

A THOUGHT for HAYING TIME.

In answer to an inquiry by a reader of the Tribune for the reason why his cows do nut expel the after-birth, Professor L. B. Arnold suggests that perhaps they have been fed upon over-ripe hay, and thus received insufficient nutriment. It is a mystery to me why farmers who feed all their own hay can be so unwise as to leave their grass standing until it is dead ripe. The farmer who sells his hay does so because he thinks it weighs more and shrinks less, though where the difference lie - (honestly considered) between selling over-ripe hay, sanded sugar, or watered milk, is not clear to my mind. In either case the purchaser sustains a loss, paying an exorbitant price for a poor article. I write feelingly upon this subject, having bought hay last winter of three farmers, paying 25 dols. per ton. My own supply gave out early in March ; the cows were then averaging six pounds each of butter. Upon purchased hay they run down to less than four pounds, though fed a larger amount of roots and one quart extra of corn-meal to each cow. Besides this loss, was the additional labor of chaffing the hay to induce them to eat it, loss of flesh, and less skim-milk for calves. The butter also lost much of its high flavor and rich color. I often wish those men could be compelled to live for one winter upon comparatively harsh and iunutricious food; doubtless they would learn something by the experience. I attribute the great superiority of my own hay to these three points: First, early cutting; second, thick seeding; and, third, liberal manuring. I believe (would like Professor Arnold’s opinion) that there is more nutriment in a ton of hay from the meadow liberally topdressed with cattle manure than in the same quantity from a poor meadow. I have seen farmers plow up meadow land, take off a crop of corn, then a crop of oats next spring, and in the fall seed down to rye. In a year or two the grass is run out, and the same rotation is gone through again; seldom, if ever, is any manure used. Surely old mother earth is very patient to bear such treatment year after year, but the end will come at last. To return to the hay question. Those farmers who allow their hay to get ripe before cutting overreach themselves. Timothy starts very slowlv after being cut, is bulbous-rooted, and suffers from the drying effects of sun and wind. If cut early it soon starts again, and if the aftermath is not pastured, such meadows, with anoccasional topdressing, will last for ever.